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César Chávez
César Chávez is a BrainPOP Social Studies video that launched on February 13, 2007. Summary Appearances *Tim *Moby Transcript and Quiz *César Chávez/Transcript *César Chávez/Quiz FYI In Practice César Chávez’s birthday (March 31) is a holiday in eight states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. Many schools recognize Chávez’s work by setting up service learning projects, which combine academic activities with community work. If your state doesn’t celebrate César Chávez Day — or even if it does — you can work with a teacher to start a service learning project that helps you learn about a social issue, develop skills, and give back to your community. The possibilities are endless, but here are a few ideas! Work with an artist to design a community mural that honors the life of César Chávez, another social activist, or a community leader. Create a vegetable garden that can be used to grow food for hungry people in your community, and also teach about urban homelessness and small-scale agriculture. Organize a group to clean up a park or shoreline while learning about ecology and conservation efforts. Create a pamphlet explaining the United States Bill of Rights and distribute it in your school or community. Way Back When Around 1100, European tradesmen began to organize into groups called guilds, which are sometimes — although not very accurately — thought of as forerunners of today’s labor unions. In many cities, guilds controlled the economy by controlling skilled trades like metalworking, woodworking, textiles, building, stone cutting, and much more. In order to practice one of these trades, you usually had to belong to a guild and to go through a lengthy training process, starting out as an apprentice and then moving up to be a journeyman and then a master. Guilds could be very powerful because they controlled goods that people needed to survive—and because they often kept certain methods of production secret. On the other hand, they also made sure their workers were paid fair wages, and that guild members who could no longer work were taken care of. The difference between these guilds and modern trade unions is that guilds were made up of self-employed tradesmen, while modern trade unions are made up of workers who are employed by a company. But both organizations are based on the collective power of workers who all share a skill or trade. Arts And Entertainment The most famous depiction of the struggles of migrant workers in California is The Grapes of Wrath, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by John Steinbeck in 1939. The novel tells the story of the Joad family, which loses its Oklahoma farm during the Dust Bowl (the dust storms that destroyed thousands of Midwestern farms during the Great Depression). The Joads drive to California to find work, but once they arrive they’re confronted with low wages, horrible living conditions, and greedy farm owners. The book was made into an Academy Award-winning film in 1940, and it is still read in high schools across the country, both for its literary value and its historical perspective. Not everyone liked the book, however: It was banned immediately after its publication in towns across the country, allegedly for obscenity but more likely for its portrayal of oppressive farming practices by wealthy landowners. Real Life Many factors contributed to the Great Depression, and one of them was the Dust Bowl, an ecological disaster that ravaged America’s Great Plains region. For years, the fertile soil of the Midwest had drawn farmers with its promise of huge crop yields, but by the early 1930s, overproduction and poor farming techniques had become serious problems. The herds of buffalo that fertilized the land had all been killed off, and the grass that protected the rich topsoil had been plowed under and replaced by agricultural fields. After a severe drought, the soil turned into dust and simply blew away. Huge dust clouds rolled east across the prairies, blackening the sky and dumping much of the Great Plains into the Atlantic Ocean. Farmers were left with barren fields, and banks were quick to foreclose on their houses when they could no longer make their mortgage payments. With nowhere else to go, between 300,000 and 400,000 Americans moved west to find work on California farms. As author John Steinbeck noted, the glut of cheap labor flooding into California led to filthy migrant camps filled with desperate people who were forced to work in low-paying, unsafe, and exploitative jobs. It wasn’t until several decades later that César Chávez and other activists took steps to stop these unfair conditions. In Depth César Chávez was the son of immigrants, and he worked to make sure that recent immigrants to the United States could have fair, safe, and equal access to jobs and schools. However, he was strongly opposed to illegal immigration — the practice of people from other countries entering the United States without going through official channels. Because illegal immigrants, lacking a social security number, can’t get many jobs, they tend to accept jobs that are unsafe and exploitative, just like the ones Chávez was trying to change. If illegal immigrants took those jobs, employers would have no reason to negotiate and bargain with Chávez or other union leaders. To prevent that, Chávez would often turn in illegal immigrants to the government. Immigration, both legal and illegal, is a very important political issue today. For more information, check out our Immigration movie and FYIs! 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